2014 NICE Conference

Three tracks have been designed to enable attendees to gain the maximum benefit from the NICE 2014 Conference:

Track 1: Workforce and Skills Development

This track is designed for workforce development professionals, and provides exciting and highly-actionable sessions that identify key strategies and tools with which they can build our nation's cybersecurity workforce.

Leading-edge professionals in both commercial and government sectors have come together to present a powerhouse lineup of panels and individual sessions covering such topics as:

• How competency-based credentials can benefit when traditional paths to a college degree are impractical;
• How the DOD Cyberspace Workforce Strategy is being implemented to transform legacy and evolving workforces into a cohesive cyberspace workforce;
• An interactive Cybersecurity Jobs Map that highlights market intelligence and other efforts to connect job seekers with job openings and resources; and
• How a DHS program provides students pursuing cybersecurity-related degrees with an opportunity to work with top cybersecurity professionals, while learning about the unique cybersecurity missions.

Track 2: Education - Building the Cyber Generation

This track targets educator and student users of cybersecurity training strategies ... and the professionals developing them. The Education track provides case studies on cutting edge cybersecurity curricula and technologies designed to accelerate the building of the Cyber Generation.

Intriguing, provocative and implementable-results sessions have been carefully constructed and aligned for maximum benefit for teachers from middle school through college. Exciting session topics include:

• A high school in Baltimore County that partnered with industry to transform five students in an after-school cybersecurity club into a leading national Cyber Science Program;
• How Louisiana has strategically decided to build a world class Cyber Security workforce by building an integrated, connected education system;
• How the new discipline of Cyber Science moves beyond the traditional education tracks of computer science, information technology, information systems and software engineering; and
• How the NSF and the Dept of Education created a framework for producing and sharing knowledge and evidence resources, so that innovations that work can be more quickly and widely used in classrooms around the country.

Track 3: Industry-Driven Initiatives

This track provides panels and presentations created by leading cyber employers describing how they are actively developing, supporting and driving the cyber education movement. These sessions describe internal activities being implemented by their own Fortune 500 companies, as well as the tools, systems and processes they develop for other companies in the education space to use with their clients.

Here is a sampling of the sessions designed for industry and workforce attendees, providing immediate take-away value:

• A view from the CIISO/CSO seat provides a valuable perspective on the types of knowledge, skills and abilities that communications companies are looking for;
• A panel debates "professionalization" in the cybersecurity industry, including the role and value of credentialing;
• An industry-led initiative designed to help companies fill their cybersecurity jobs with qualified individuals, while simultaneously helping candidates start careers; and
• How cybersecurity competitions are a great way to highlight skills and apply knowledge in creative ways, including ways to build community among the many, fragmented, competitions, successes (and failures) of these initiatives, and how to create national scale competitions.

Special ... Birds of a Feather (BoF) Luncheon Sessions

If having three tracks isn't enough for the cyber-insatiable conference goers this year, we've created a quasi "fourth track" to be conducted during the 1.5-hour lunch periods of the Conference.

We received so many great presentation proposals from experts across the nation that we couldn't possibly include them all within the limited time of our two-day conference. In order to solve this wonderful dilemma, we decided to accept 36 of the abundantly-rich overflow proposals and we're having these speakers each host a roundtable discussion right during lunch! Attendees will be able to grab a lunch, select a table, and munch along while listening to yet another terrific presentation ... with a great opportunity for interactive involvement.

The Birds of a Feather lunchtime sessions include topics such as:

• Why simulated cyber attacks in labs are critical in Security Analyst skills development;
• Bringing cyber realities into focus through virtually reality technology;
• Taking security training out of the classroom and into the real-world; and
• A better way to connect employers, job-seekers and education assets to meet the cybersecurity job demand.

See You Soon!

So that's the preview of our line-up for this year's conference! As you'll see in the Agenda, we also have some incredibly powerful Keynotes set for each day, as well as a way cool reception on the first evening featuring "CyberTini's on the Lake" that will enable attendees to relax and network with industry colleagues and educators.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the NICE 2014 Conference and Expo!